Submitted by EdelmanAgency IPI Score 94/100

While the Water Boils

Edelman built a video series for Barilla hosted by Hannah Hart that reached 393M impressions and coincided with 1% year-over-year sales growth for the pasta category.

387K engagementsengagements
393M impressionsimpressions
150+% increase in YouTube subscribersincrease in YouTube subscribers
8.3 million+ minutes spent viewing the series on Barilla's YouTube page and PassionForPasta.com in first seasonminutes spent viewing the series
24M viewsviews

Case in 60 seconds

Modern cultural and diet trends were driving a decline in pasta sales, particularly among millennials, so Barilla faced a category problem rather than a competitive one and had to change how a generation thought about the food.

The campaign appears to turn on the reading that millennials would respond to pasta framed as an occasion for passion rather than as a nutritional choice, because passion was the trait Edelman identified in the generation and the argument on diet trends was one the category was losing.

Barilla used its position as the category's leading brand to make the cooking time of pasta itself the format of a video series, so the product became the container for conversations about passion rather than the subject of them.

YouTube personality and food "Passionista" Hannah Hart hosted the series, meeting cultural figures including Bill Nye, Rachel Zoe and Wanda Sykes to talk about life and the pursuit of their passions, all in the time it takes to prepare pasta, with episodes running on Barilla's YouTube page and PassionForPasta.com.

Edelman reports 24M views, 387K engagements and 393M impressions, with 8.3 million+ minutes spent viewing the series on Barilla's YouTube page and PassionForPasta.com in first season, a 150+% increase in YouTube subscribers, and 1% year-over-year sales growth for pasta category and Barilla, the first time in many years.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Millennials, described on the page as a passionate generation and as the group among whom pasta sales were declining most.
Modern cultural and diet trends had turned pasta into a food consumers were moving away from, so the brand had to work against a prevailing view of the category rather than against another manufacturer.
Sales were falling across the pasta category and not only for Barilla, which meant category recovery and brand recovery were the same job and made a leading brand the only party with reason to fund it.
Barilla acted for the category rather than only for itself, using its position as the leading brand to underwrite content about passion in which the product supplied the timeframe rather than the sales message.
Based on the available evidence, the work assumes millennials engage with pasta through the interval it occupies in a day rather than through its nutritional profile, so the series occupied that interval instead of arguing about the food.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • YouTube

Partners

  • Edelman (lead_agency)

Creator role

  • Bill Nye — creator
  • Hannah Hart — creator
  • Rachel Zoe — creator
  • Wanda Sykes — creator

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
engagements387K engagementsengagements
impressions393M impressionsimpressions
increase in YouTube subscribers150+% increase in YouTube subscribersperformance
minutes spent viewing the series8.3 million+ minutes spent viewing the series on Barilla's YouTube page and PassionForPasta.com in first seasonperformance
views24M viewsvideo_views
year-over-year sales growth for pasta category and Barilla1% year-over-year sales growth for pasta category and Barilla, the first time in many yearsbusiness

Why Edelman's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Where a category is losing an argument about diet, a brand can shift the terms by attaching the product to an unrelated identity trait, which is what the passion framing did for pasta rather than contesting the nutritional case directly.

  2. 2

    A product constraint can serve as a content format, because the time it takes to boil water gave the series a fixed length that was owned by the brand rather than borrowed from a platform convention.

  3. 3

    A single host with an established food audience carrying guests from outside the category appears to widen reach beyond food viewers, which the mix of Bill Nye, Rachel Zoe and Wanda Sykes suggests was the intent rather than a casting accident.

  4. 4

    Running the series on both a brand YouTube page and a brand-owned site means viewing minutes accrue to assets the brand controls, so the 150+% increase in YouTube subscribers reads as a durable audience rather than a one-season spike.

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